Living Ink
by Kemoren
Summary: When Henry grows wary of Joey's methods of bringing characters to life, he leaves for a different animation studio, where he eventually creates the Warners. Later, when Henry receives a letter from his old friend, he's brought back into the twisted world of Joey's creations. This time, however, Henry's brought his own new characters with him. What will become of Joey Drew Studios?


**Animaniacs x Bendy and the Ink Machine. Probably a fanfic that doesn't really need to exist, but you know what? Fanfics are ****_supposed_**** to be things that were never supposed to exist. Therefore, this story was just dying to be written. (****_I'm honestly surprised that it hasn't been written yet_****) Take a cartoony horror game that takes itself super seriously, add a dash of Warner Bros. madness, and what do you get? Probably something better than this story, but you're stuck with this, unfortunately.**

**Sorry folks, there's going to be minimal shipping and OCs in this, so if that's what you're here for, I'm going to have to disappoint you. My goal with this is mostly to satirize Bendy and the Ink Machine, and how seriously it takes itself, and how better to do that than with the Warner brothers (and Warner sister)? After all, it takes a good cartoon to know a good cartoon. Also, aside from the Warners, I'm not sure if I'm going to wind up including any of the other Animaniacs cast. We'll see if I can't fit 'em in somehow, but don't get your hopes up.**

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_**Newsreel of the Stars:** Dateline, New York, 1960. Henry Stein and Joey Drew struggle to bring life to their cartoon creations. Joey's increasingly disturbing yet equally unsuccessful methods cross the line for Henry, and he sets off to find a new studio to work for. It isn't long before he lands a character design job at Warner Brothers, a company which had already succeeded in bringing its characters to the real world. Thrilled, and wanting to try it for himself, Henry designed three new characters, the Warner brothers, and their sister, Dot. Unfortunately, the trio were too wild to control, and their cartoons made no sense, so the company had to make a drastic decision. The Warners' cartoons were locked away, never to be seen again. The Warners themselves were locked away in the studio water tower, also never to be seen again. With that, peace returned to the studio, though it was short lived. The Warners, unsatisfied with their new living conditions, often escaped and wrought havoc. There wasn't much the studio could do, unfortunately, so they simply had to catch the Warner kids and put them back in the water tower regularly. As for their creator, Henry was demoted to a less harmful position for causing so much trouble, and currently works as a colorist. It's unclear the direction that Henry's old studio took, though, as it fell off the radar. Henry had kept much of his time working there as hidden as he could to this day, when a fateful letter arrived..._

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It was a quiet day in Burbank. Well, as quiet as a busy, crowded, Californian metropolis could be. Which is to say, it was quite noisy. Perhaps 'quiet' isn't the right description.

It was a normal, noisy day in Burbank. The sidewalks were full of people avoiding eye contact with each other. Pigeons flocked from building to building, statue to statue, scouting for new perches and leftover food scraps. The honking of cars echoed up the sides of the buildings that lined the busy roads. Those things aren't what this story is about, however. Instead, our story starts with mail. How exciting! More specifically, a mail truck, slowly crawling through the busy city, making its rounds.

The truck approached the gates to a large movie studio. Its logo was proudly displayed on the front gate, as well as the water tower in the center of the film lot. The big WB. Warner Brothers. The truck came to a stop at the entrance gate. The driver exchanged a few words with the guard at the gate before being let in. The truck made its way across the lot to the foremost building. The driver killed the engine, slung her mail bag over her shoulder, and walked into the building.

A receptionist sat at a desk directly inside. Mailboxes lined the wall to the left, and a door and an elevator were to the left, likely leading further into the building. The mail-woman ignored the right side of the room, tossing a casual "Morning," to the receptionist.

The receptionist glanced up. "Mhm," she responded in a bored tone, returning her attention to her paperwork. The mail-woman began to sift through her bag, placing a few letters through their respective mail slots. After a few minutes, she left the building, giving one last, unacknowledged wave to the desk clerk.

The second she stepped out the door, the mail-woman's attention was brought to a loud, metallic creak from across the lot. She stopped in her tracks, staring up in disbelief as the large WB on the water tower swung open like a door. Three dark forms darted out of the opening, and raced to the ground in a blur. Before the mail-woman could even react, they were upon her.

"Hell-oooooooo, nurse!" The mail-woman didn't have time to process what that even meant before two of the three things jumped into her arms. She flinched backwards as they gave her a big kiss. The mail-woman shook her head and tried to take in the situation. Recognition dawned on her. "Wait, are you three..." The two in her arms jumped back with flourish.

"We're the Warner brothers!" they announced in unison. The third figure hopped out from behind them, calling, "And, the Warner sister!"

It was her first time delivering mail on this route, but the mail-woman had been warned substantially about the Warners before accepting, so she recognized the toons in front of her. Not wanting to get involved in the Warners' infamous antics, the mail-woman quickly ran back to the safety of her mail truck and drove away as fast as she possibly could. She won't be coming back into this story. She's smarter than that.

"Well, sibs," Yakko, the oldest of the Warners began. "Let's get outta here before Plotz tries to throw the book at us."

"Not again!" Dot, the youngest of the trio whined. "It hit _me_ last time!"

"What's that?" Wakko, the middle Warner asked, pointing at a piece of paper on the ground. In the moment the boys had jumped on mail-woman, one of her letters had accidentally fallen out of her mail bag. Yakko picked it up and unfolded it, scanning its text.

"Well, it's addressed to Henry," Yakko noted aloud. His siblings exchanged a quick glance.

"What's it say, Yakko?" asked Dot, as her and Wakko leaned over their brother's shoulders.

"Dear Henry," Yakko began. "It's been a while, hasn't it? It's hard to believe it's already been 30 years! We've missed you over at Joey Drew Studios. In fact, we'd love to show you how far we've come since then. Why don't you come on down to the old workshop? There's something I'd like to show you. Your best pal, Joey Drew."

The Warners exchanged confused looks. They knew a bit about Henry's old studio, but Henry had always talked about how glad he was that he hadn't stayed.

"Well sibs," Yakko announced while pointing to the sky. "Looks like we have a mystery on our hands. Now all we need is a dog and a second sister."

Dot crossed her arms. "I don't think so."

"In that case," said Yakko. "We should probably get this letter to Henry."

The Warners quickly made their way over to the animation department and burst through the door. "It's them!" yelled one of the workers. "Hit the deck!" shouted another. The department went into a panic, and everyone fled into a nearby storage room, bracing it shut. Normally, the Warners would have no problem messing with them from in there, but they had more important things to address at the moment.

In the rush of everything, one person had stayed at their desk. Henry was inking the colors for the latest issue of the Animaniacs comic. After the room had quieted, Henry set down his pen and turned around. The Warners were lined up in front of him.

"Hi, kids," Henry smiled. "What brings you here?"

Yakko brandished the letter at Henry. "The mail lady dropped this letter, so we thought we'd finish the delivery."

Henry took the letter and took a moment to read it. He sighed. "I hoped Joey would let go of his obsession after I left, but it seems like he kept going." Henry flipped over the letter, reading the return address. "Still at 1600 Broadway, I see..."

The Warners jumped in elation. "Broadway!?" they repeated in excitement before clinging to Henry's legs. "We wanna come!"

Henry's brow furrowed. "I'm not even sure I want to go, if I'm being honest. I left that studio for a reason..." He looked down at the toons' pleading expressions and reluctantly smiled. "...but I can't say no to those looks. Pack up you three, we're going to New York."

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**And there you are, Chapter 1, done and done. I've got a decent idea of how I'm going to go through this story already, but you're more than welcome to share ideas in the review box, if you want.**

**It was a little hard to decide, but I had to shift one of the universe's timelines a bit to make it to where Joey and Henry weren't like 90 years old. I decided to shift the Bendy timeline up 30 years, so that this story happens in the 90s instead of the 60s (This also means that the Warners' creation also got pushed up 30 years, unfortunately, but it's not too big a deal). It probably won't affect things too much in the long run, just wanted to clear up some creative liberties I took.**

**I'll save you a bit of Googling. 1600 Broadway, New York, NY is where Fleischer Studios is located. Did you know it's still in operation? They don't make cartoons or anything anymore, but Mark Fleischer (Max's grandson) owns the company, and takes care of stuff like merchandising. It's not going to be like that in this story, though...**

**Also, sorry if there isn't much action or anything in this chapter. Had to get a bit of world-building in, set the stage, you know. Thing's'll pick up in the next chapter, don't you worry.**


End file.
